Volunteers still needed for Saturday's Make A Difference Day

Wednesday

Oct 24, 2012 at 12:01 AMOct 24, 2012 at 4:56 PM

Molly McGowan/Times-News

Every fourth Saturday in October for more than a decade, the United Way of Alamance County and the Times-News have sought volunteers to complete tasks on Make A Difference Day. But this year, volunteer numbers are dwindling, meaning some community projects may go unfinished.

“It’s a national day of volunteering,” sponsored by USA Weekend, said Ruth Pruitt, administrative assistant at the United Way of Alamance County.

Pruitt has been fielding phone calls from people in the community looking to volunteer on October 27, this year’s Make A Difference Day. Unfortunately, she’s not getting as many calls as she’d like.

Despite advertisements in the paper listing local volunteer opportunities and collections, “Not as many people (are) responding,” Pruitt said. “It’s kind of dwindled over the years,” she said.

Pruitt said in 2000, she began organizing the local initiative and played the middleman who linked interested volunteers with organizations needing help. This year, she’s doing the same, but only some of the roughly 17 projects have enough volunteers to complete them.

“Some agencies have more than one project,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt said volunteers have committed to bagging lunches at Loaves & Fishes, sorting rubber ducks from the Dash for Cash fundraiser at Meals on Wheels, picking up trash and weeding flower beds at Eastlawn Elementary School and placing potted plants at the entrance of Alamance ElderCare.

The city of Burlington’s Water Resources Department, Morgantown Baptist Church and Elon University’s chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha have teamed up to clean up Servis Creek in the Morgantown area. And Pruitt said the Holly Street Bible Study has collected enough items to assemble gift bags, which the group will distribute to home-bound Alamance County residents on Saturday.

But other projects may go unfinished, if more volunteers don’t sign up between now and Make A Difference Day.

For example, Friendship Adult Day Services needs more volunteers to complete its two projects – construction and installation of a railing along steps and planting flower bulbs – and Pruitt said, “That one’s up in the air right now.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, about 500 volunteers have signed up for Make A Difference Day, but 400 of those are dedicated to the Loaves & Fishes project, leaving only 100 people to tackle the other projects throughout the community, Pruitt said.

Ideally, she said, an additional 100 volunteers could tackle the rest of the workload. Pruitt said those who call her at the United Way can pick a project or they’ll be directed to those still needing volunteers, such as those at Allied Churches, Meals on Wheels, Friendship Adult Day Services and Eastlawn Elementary.

Volunteers are encouraged to sign up as soon as possible, since Make A Difference Day is Saturday. Call Ruth Pruitt at 336-438-2000.

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